Kings in your desires

This abandoned nest is in a holly bush in the rear courtyard at St James', Cross Roads; we have no idea what happened to the mother.

Meanwhile, Refugee Week events in Bradford have been feeding me (in some cases, literally).

Among it all, the discovery that that the only surviving sample of Shakespeare’s handwriting appears to be a passage from The Book of Sir Thomas More.  More is given these words speaking to a mob bent on provoking the expulsion of Huguenot refugees:

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another.

Alongside which, I've begun to wish I knew the literary source of the Taizé chant which includes the evocative words ne laisse pas mes ténèbres me parler (do not let my darkness speak to me); it seems to be a prayer in which we are of need.